Imperial Beach is a city in San Diego County, California, United States. The population was 26,992 at the 2000 census.
Every year the city holds the annual Sand Castles event, which draws about 400,000 people over three days.
The city occupies the extreme southwest corner of the continental United States: bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west and Mexico on the south.
Known as a biker town for its rough atmosphere and seedy beachfront area throughout the 70s, Imperial Beach has undergone a significant makeover in the last ten years and the city has done much to become more visitor-friendly, commercially viable and overall more aesthetically pleasing. However, the city is still a low-key beach community. For years the city was controlled by pro-growth elected officials, but over the years environmentalists and other activists helped elect a group of smart-growth and no-growth elected officials. The City of Imperial Beach is now implementing an ambitious community redevelopment plan to improve the badly developed commercial corridor along Palm Avenue and Seacoast Drive.
Imperial Beach was the location of fierce environmental battles in the 1970s and 1980s over plans to develop the Tijuana Estuary and build a breakwater to control beach erosion. Former Mayor Brian Bilbray, who later became a U.S. Congressman, lost both battles and the Tijuana Estuary is now a National Estuarine Research Reserve and State Park. The cessation of plans to build the breakwater was officially the first major victory of the then fledgling Surfrider Foundation, now an international organization with 45,000-members. While the International Boundary and Water Commission wastewater plant completed in 1999 has greatly improved water quality during dry weather, the biggest obstacle to the renewal of Imperial Beach is the continued pollution of the Tijuana River and beach closures just south of the city during wet weather.
Surfing is popular in Imperial Beach with activities concentrated north and south of the Imperial Beach Pier and in front of the Tijuana Estuary at the famed Boca Rio beachbreak. The Tijuana Sloughs, a fabled big-wave surf spot is now almost unrideable due to raw toxic sewage that flows into the break from the Tijuana River. WiLDCOAST, a coastal conservation organization based in Imperial Beach, launched a grassroots "Clean Water Now" campaign to support a comprehensive plan to clean up the Tijuana River and reduce beach closures along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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